Glad I'm not Working for McWane

[BunsGettingFirm]

FRONTLINE: a dangerous business revisited | PBS

 

[ls99]

1. Clearly, the Frontline program is proof that crappy, dangerous, physically demanding jobs are wanted and held by Americans. And stick with it.
2. Foundry work is inherently filthy, dirty, smelly, extremely dangerous, physically demanding and unforgiving of human error. Your head better be paying attention and be on constant swivel, else loose it, along with some appendages.
Did I mention that the working conditions are not pleasant. By jove no air conditioning!
3. Having spent 2 years as an electrician student/apprentice in a very large foundry behind the Iron Curtain, the working conditions Frontline described would have been considered cushy and mellow by me and those I worked with.
4. While the described management attitude may be as described, PBS tends to present biased whiny points of view, in my opinion.

 

[Shawn]

An interesting set of articles. However, there was a significant omission. Almost all workplace fatality victims are men (about 95% in the United States). In fact, the 20 or so victims mentioned in the FRONTLINE story and the NY Times link were men. However, this significant anomaly was never mentioned in the story. You can bet that if all or almost all workers injured/killed at McWane or another company were women, it would be the focus of the story. The problem here isn't that companies do not value the lives of workers, it is that companies do not value the lives of men. Presumably, this includes left-leaning media organizations such as FRONTLINE and the NY Times. FRONTLINE and the NY Times frequently discuss gender-based pay disparities, but then they ignore a fundamental reason for these disparities ... men take on more difficult and dangerous work.

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

I was hoping that people would come to see that their jobs don't suck that much. It's one thing to stew about being dissed at a desk job, but it's quite another to become human stew at a McWane plant. BTW, the Tyler plant manager made a very good salary for Tyler, TX, but even he eventually saw what kind of bad environment he was helping create. Now he's making 1/6 what he used to make.

BTW, Shawn, I used to be a reader of Warren Farrell as well. I used to get pretty worked up about the issues you discussed. After a while, I see that the world probably will continue to operate using the old assigned gender roles but just with a nice equality veneer on top. Once I figured that out, I now enjoy my martini at the strip club completely guilt free.

 

[ls99]

BunsGetting Firm, I think the point was very well made. Though I'm not sure many people "get" the actual concept of what it is like to work in j*obs of that nature.

No amount of talking, video or stills can ever convey the the smell, noise, temperature extremes of heavy industrial environments.

The awesome nature of large quantities of molten metal, like that of hot flowing lava is truly spectacular and fearsome and can only be understood up close and personal.

"Dirty Jobs" comes closest in conveying the concepts, but still can't project the true aroma.

If some someone can design a TV which emits all the right olfactory sensations and does not limit the dynamic range of audio, then the public would get a little closer. The fear factor can never be duplicated in the comforts of a living room.

 

[slimjim]

McWane is well known in the business for problems. US Pipe, and American Pipe are known for the exact opposite.

 

[ladelfina]

I really have to hand it to people who are willing to work in those conditions. It's too bad men may die in risky jobs; I wish that didn't happen. I don't know why it has to be turned into a gender-based pissing contest, though.
Risky jobs should get paid more for everyone doing them, for sure, but women's pay inequalities still exist for the same, identical job.

The main cause of death for pregnant women is being murdered by their husbands/boyfriends.

Murder is now believed to be responsible for more pregnancy-associated deaths in this country than any other single cause, including medical complications such as embolism or hemorrhaging.

Murder most foul - Salon.com

For many women "life" can be a "risky job environment".
Just something to keep in perspective.